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Tuesday, April 30, 2013

The
bishop walked to the lectern, opened the Good Book, and announced ‘The reading
this morning is the Parable of the Turbulent Priest, as recorded in the Gospel according to
St Kalaki, Chapter 23 Verses 12-36…’

There was in the Land of Zed at that
time a young priest by the name of Francis Bwabwata, who liked to speak out against
sin and corruption. He had just been ordained as a priest and was keen to make
a name for himself.

So one day he knelt down and prayed to the
Lord, saying ‘Oh Father in Heaven, where can I find some sin and corruption to
expose? When people are in church they are always on their best behaviour, and
I have failed to find a single case of theft or even fornication within the
holy precinct of the church.’

‘Fear not,’ answered the Lord, ‘for
the world is full of the sins of greed, covetousness and gluttony which lead to
corruption. You must follow your congregation to find out where they go after
church.’

And so, the very next Sabbath, young Father
Francis followed his flock out of the church and into the nearby Soccer Coliseum,
where the local team, the Neanderthal Warriors, was playing the Chibuku Chola
Boys.

And what the innocent Francis saw was too
awful to behold, so much so that he had to scurry back to his church, fall to
his knees and pray to the Lord, saying ‘O Lord I have seen terrible things. The
referee is paid to see the sins of one side rather than the other, while the
local team has dug special muti under the goalposts, and the crowd participates
by hurling beer bottles in a most partisan fashion. O Lord, I have come back
here to pray for peace and goodwill to prevail on Earth.’

Whereupon the Good Lord, who can get really
annoyed sometimes, roared ‘It’s no good coming here to pray, you are supposed
to go out there and do something about it! Show them all a red card!’

And so, fortified with this backing
from such a famous celestial mentor, the good priest Francis went forth
courageously to the next match armed with a red card. And when the referee
failed to award an obvious penalty, Francis raised his red card and shouted ‘In
the name of the Lord, send him off’. Whereupon, a crowd of Neanderthal supporters ran onto the pitch, picked up the referee, and carried him off.

After this initial success, Father Francis immediately formed a supporters club, which he called the No Nonsense
Neanderthals, and kitted them out with red cards, red whistles and red shirts. And
before long Father Francis became a national hero for his Christian Crusade
against corruption in football, extending the his campaign off-field to the rigged election
of club directors, backhanders in stadium building contracts, illegal selling
of players, and so on.

Even better for Francis’s reputation,
he was soon arrested by the Police Farce on charges of having a red card
without a licence, inciting a football crowd to shout at a referee, and wearing
a red shirt without permission from Manchester United. As soon as the various laughable
charges had been duly laughed out of court, he was carried shoulder high to the
clubroom of the Neanderthal Warriors and made Chairman of the Club alongside a
new board of directors.

That evening Father Francis again knelt
in prayer. ‘Oh Lord,’ he said, ‘I humbly thank you for this opportunity to lead
football towards the Kingdom of Heaven, and to do my small part in your work to
rid this Earth of sin and corruption.’

And the Lord spoke unto him, saying ‘Just
watch yourself, and make sure you don’t get pompous.’

Father Francis was soon so busy reforming
football that had no time for either church or prayer. But one evening he was
so pleased with his own good work that he thought of asking the Lord whether he
didn’t deserve promotion to an even higher calling. ‘O Lord,’ he prayed, ‘I
trust you have been appreciating my good work, and I’m humbly asking whether
you would back me for the presidency of the Land of Zed at the next election,
so that I may extend your fight against sin and corruption.’

‘My son,’ replied the Lord solemnly, ‘I
have seen that you have fired two directors who disagreed with you.’

‘I’m pleased you appreciate that,’
purred Father Francis. ‘Maintaining unity in the club is always my top
priority.’

‘My son,’ intoned the Lord, ‘I see
that you have never been available to hear complaints from the Supporters Club.’

‘It’s difficult to attend to
everything,’ explained Father Francis, ‘I have had to spend so much time attending
high-level FIFA meetings in Switzerland.’

‘My son,’ continued the Lord, ‘What
are you doing about the continuing complaints of corruption in the Neanderthal
Warriors Football Club?’

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

It was a warm afternoon in the village
of Baluba. The men were dozing in the nsaka, and the women were away working in
their fields. Suddenly children began to skip and dance and shout, pointing to a
rising cloud of dust on the horizon. A vehicle was approaching!

How could this be? There was no
by-election. Perhaps some tourists were lost? They were still wondering when
the Pajero drove into the village and stopped at the nsaka. Out stepped a man
in a striped suit and tie, and started to shake hands with everybody. ‘Who are
you?’ they asked. ‘Where have you come from? Are you a minister?’

‘I am much more important than that,’ he
replied. ‘I am Clever Chiwa, the son you sent away to get educated. I have come
back to visit my village.’

‘Ah ha,’ said one grizzly old mudala,
‘that was many moons ago, before the year of the locusts.’

‘Yes,’ said another, ‘So what have you
brought back for us? Will you build a new church? A new road? A new school?’

‘Much more than that!’ said Chiwa,
making a grand expansive gesture toward the horizon.

And so, within the hour, after the
indunas had been disentangled from their conjugal duties with their younger
wives, and the Chief had been roused from a drunken slumber, the Indaba was ready
to meet their long lost son.

‘My son,’ began the Chief, ‘It is
thirty years we have been waiting for you to come back to this village, to reap
our reward from our investment in your education. We are now assembled to hear
what you have brought us.’

Dramatically Chiwa pulled out his
pocket a bundle of papers. ‘Here,’ he cried, ‘I have brought you my CV!’

‘Your See Vee!’ shouted the Chief,
‘What’s that! I wanted a Tee Vee!’

‘A CV is much better,’ explained
Chiwa. ‘CV stands for Celebrated Victories! It lists all the marvelous things I
have done in my life!’

‘Oh Dear,’ said the Chief sadly. ‘Things
like failing to come home for your own mother’s funeral. Anyway, please read this
See Vee to us because we have forgotten our spectacles.’

‘It would take too long to read it all,’
Chiwa apologized, ‘because my enormous accomplishments are so many. But suffice
it to say that I have a doctorate in the anatomy of a cow…’

‘He could have stayed here to study
the cow,’ muttered one of the indunas.

‘… and I am a Distinguished Professor
in the Engineering of Stress Release Patterns in the Vertebrae of Bovine Species
at the University of Donald Duck in Disneyland!’

‘Have you ever worked for a living?’
wondered the Chief.

‘Like all geniuses,’ said Chiwa, ‘My
brilliant mind is in much demand. Currently I am the Royal Controller of Cattle
in England, with special responsibilities to supply the Queen of England with prime-cut
beef for all Royal Feasts!’

Now at last the Chief’s interest began
to perk up. ‘Then you could become my Royal Controller of Cattle?’

‘Indeed I could,’ agreed Chiwa. ‘Then
at last I shall be able to use my incredible skills to develop my country. You
must stop using your herd as a mere bank for capital, and instead begin cattle
farming for a profit. And for that job, you have found the best man in the
world. Congratulations!’

And so that the villagers in Baluba
began their three-year programme of building the sort of mansion which would be
necessary to accommodate a man of such social distinction and global
accomplishment. In the meantime Chiwa set up his house and office in Lusaka and
began drawing up the contracts to establish a modern cattle ranching business
in Baluba, involving the import of tractors, bailing machines, sileage plant,
pasture grass, barbed wire, and so on. All to be supplied by Chiwa Agriculural
Supplies Ltd, of Brixton, England.

So every week the Chief sent a lorry
load of 20 head of cattle to Lusaka, to raise the cash for the investment in
this very profitable exercise. In fact Chiwa was so busy with drawing up the
strategic plan, and acquiring inputs, that six months passed without him again
finding time to return to Baluba.

Then one day the children began
dancing, and singing Bwana Chiwa, Bwana Chiwa,
Bwana Chiwa. But out of the Landcruiser stepped a different gentleman in a
black suit and black trilby hat. ‘I am Bee Jay Phiri’ he announced, ‘I left
this village thirty years ago, but now I have returned to develop it!’ So, of
course, this returnee was also taken to see the Chief and all his indunas.

‘I hope you’ve brought some money to
invest.’ said the Chief.

‘Much better than money,’ laughed
Phiri, ‘I have three degrees in aeronautical engineering from the University of
Kermit in Muppetland!’

‘We already have a brilliant
development manager,’ replied the Chief. ‘A man by the name of Clever Chiwa.’

‘I know Chiwa,’ said Phiri, ‘I met him
once in Brixton. He was running a small butchery in Brick Lane.’

‘I’m told,’ said the Chief, ‘that he
supplied beef to the Queen of England.’

‘That’s right,’ said Phiri. ‘That was
the name of pub next door.’

‘Well,’ said the Chief grimly, ‘What’s
your big idea?’

‘It’s a stroke of genius,’ admitted
Phiri. ‘Just sell off all your cattle to buy an aeroplane, flatten the maize
fields to make an airport, establish Baluba International Airlines, and we’ll
all be rich!’

‘Isn’t it marvelous,’ said one of the
indunas, ‘at last we have these young men returning home to help develop their
own motherland.'

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

The Master of Ceremonies moved to the
front of the podium to announce ‘I now bring to you, all the way from Lusaka, the most
marvellous magician the world has ever known, the Great Ukwa!’

As he spoke, onto the podium glided
the imperious magician, extravagantly dressed in the cream satin suit of a
Chinese emperor, although on his head was the cap of a police constable, and
around his shoulders the red satin cloak of a medieval king.

Around the podium stood a ragged crowd
of villagers, mostly men, for the women were away working in the fields. The
scene was set in the middle of a dusty football pitch that boasted not a single
blade of grass, in a bare landscape of miserable poverty.

The Great Ukwa moved slowly in regal
fashion to the front of the podium, fixed them with the terrible glare of his
beady eyes, and scowled. The crowd trembled in anticipation. Suddenly and
unexpectedly his right arm shot out and punched the air, and simultaneously there
was a fearsome red flash and crack, and a puff of white smoke rose up from his
clenched fist. ‘I am the King of this Land and All Beyond! I am the Mighty
Ukwa, the Great Magician. I have all the powers!’

‘Hurray!’ shouted the crowd, as they
punched their fists into the air, although no clouds of smoke rose up from
their fists, because they did not have any power, let alone all the powers.

‘I have come here today to ask you, in
this by-election, to give your vote to the candidate of the Punching Fist,’
shouted Ukwa, as he punched his fist into the air, causing another crack,
flash, and puff of smoke.’

‘What is the name of our candidate?’
laughed the crowd.

‘His name is Nangu Umo! I am giving
him to you as your member of parliament!’

‘Where is he?’ laughed the crowd.

‘I have made him invisible!’ declared
the Great Ukwa, with another bang and puff of smoke. ‘Members of parliament are
never seen in their constituencies! They just disappear in a puff of smoke. If
I were to show him to you now, you would never see him again. Better that you never
see him in the first place!’

‘Then who is going to help us?’
shouted the crowd.

‘I, the Great Ukwa the Magician will
help you!’ he answered, punching another explosion into the air. ‘I have
brought this magic all the way from China and I can do anything! I have all the
powers! Am I not the one who ended the drought in Southern Province by
transferring the Mosi-o-Tunya to Choma? Am I not the one who ended the poverty
in Chirundu by transferring it to Lusaka? Was it not my mighty Punching Fist
which knocked Itezhi-Tezhi District clean out Southern Province and right into
Central Province, thereby bringing it nearer to Lusaka!’ He gave the air
another explosive punch, as another puff of smoke rose in the air. ‘And all
done with immediate effect!’

‘But what are you going to do for us?’
demanded the crowd.

‘I am Ukwa the Magician, and I have
come here today to announce a big transformation. For fifty years the
government of this country ignored Nsala. But today you are lucky, I have noticed
it. I therefore hereby declare you to be a District, which means that you
qualify for six clinics and a secondary school, which will appear within ninety
seconds, as soon as I punch the air!’ So saying, the Great Magician punched the
air. Flash! Bang! Boomagazang! A huge cloud of smoke enveloped the entire podium.
But when it had finally cleared, the Mighty Magician was gone. And with him had
gone the six clinics and a secondary school. All gone in a puff of smoke.

‘Here one minute and gone the next!’
laughed the crowd.

Now
the Master of Ceremonies leapt back onto the podium. ‘I now give you our
candidate for Nsala, the famous Mr Butuntushi Butungulushi of the By-Election
Bonanza party…’

As
the crowd cheered, onto the stage bounced a fat and jolly gentleman. ‘My
friends,’ he began, ‘We brought the Great Magician Ukwa here, not just to
entertain you, but also to remind you of how we have been treated in the past. How
were we treated?’

‘Promised
everything, got nothing!’ chanted the crowd.

‘Exactly!’
responded Butungulishi. ‘How
many clinics were we promised?’

‘Six!’
answered the crowd.

‘And
how may did we get!’

‘Nelyo
chimo!’they cried.

‘When
did we ever get anything?’

‘Only
during the election,’ they answered.

‘Exactly!’
cried Butungulushi. ‘During the election we got brown envelopes, chitenge,
bicycles, beer, fertilizer, relief food and empty promises. So what is the
policy of the By-Election Bonanza party?’

‘More
by-elections!’ shouted the enthusiastic crowd.

‘The
voice of the people must be heard!’ shouted Butungulushi. ‘You shall have more
by-elections! You just send me to parliament, and I will represent you by
immediately selling myself to the ruling party for a hundred million. This money
will be brought back here to you my people. Once I have sold myself on your
behalf, this will trigger another rewarding by-election, when more gifts will
be showered upon us. In this by-election, you can again elect somebody from the
By-Election Bonanza party, who will of course again sell himself to the ruling
party. As we continuously repeat this developmental cycle, we shall soon become
the richest constituency in the country!’

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

‘Your trouble is,’ said Kupela, ‘you
live in an idealized world. You’re always judging government performance against how
you think it ought to be. Then you get in a rage because everything is being
done wrong.’

‘Huh!’ I snorted. ‘What a foolish
thing to say. How else can things be judged, except in terms of what they ought
to be?’

‘You should first try to understand
what’s going on. All you can talk about is invisible human rights, rule of law
gone missing, blah blah. You put on a wrong pair of spectacles, causing you see
the things which nobody else can see, but failing to see what everybody else can
see. Then you get in a rage because people can’t understand what you’re talking
about, and you can’t understand what they’re talking about.’

‘What a way to talk to your father!’ I
said sternly. ‘Me, the one that brought you up, and showed you how to
understand the world! Now you claim I can’t see anything! Look around you! Do
you not see what I see? Is this not the house in which you were brought up?’

‘Yes it is,’ said Kupela. ‘So let’s
take this house as an example! Who lives here, in this house?’

‘You know the answer very well,’ I
scoffed. ‘Since you left, there’s only me and your mother.’

‘A very limited point of view,’ she
laughed. ‘This house is full of flies, mosquitoes, spiders, geckoes, carpet
mites and thousands of cockroaches. But you, with your limited humanitarian
gaze, can see only yourself and mummy.’

‘So is the world more understandable
from the perspective of a cockroach? Can I understand the behaviour of the
government by observing cockroaches?’

‘Well,’ said Koops, ‘since you’ve made
the suggestion, let’s give it a try. After all, you are always trying to
understand people in terms of rational behaviour, but the behaviour of
politicians is instinctive rather than rational. More like a cockroach.

‘So go ahead!’ I chuckled. ‘Suppose that
politicians are really huge cockroaches! What does that explain?’

‘It explains a new minister landing in
parliament, elected by nobody but appointed by somebody, crawling in through
the back door, and declaring he’s come to eat.’

‘I did criticize him,’ I said, ‘for
saying that!’

‘You criticized him because you can’t
understand him. You thought he’d come to render service for the benefit of the
people. So you couldn’t understand what he was saying and you got yourself into
a rage. If you had worn a better pair of spectacles you would have realized that
he was really a huge brainless cockroach, and you would have understood his
behaviour as entirely normal.’

‘Huh,’ I said. ‘Can your cockroach
theory explain anything else?’

‘Ever stepped into the kitchen at
night, turned on the light, and seen cockroaches crossing the floor? Parliament
is just the same. Political cockroaches will always cross the floor if there’s
more food on the other side.’

‘But they are also there to serve the
people,’ I said. ‘That’s why we put them there.’

‘You’re wearing completely wrong spectacles,’
laughed Kupela. ‘Cockroaches want to get into government to capture the
treasury, so they can sit and chew, and become monster political cockroaches,
not like the half-starved little relatives who live in our houses.’

‘But at elections they promise us
development, food, and an end to poverty.’

‘People think the big fat political cockroaches
are talking to them, but actually they’re talking to the little domestic cockroaches
who are everywhere, and listening very carefully.’

‘So they don’t have our interests at
heart?’

‘We are just the useful idiots that
keep the whole system working. The political economy of cockroachism works by
each fat political cockroach using us to produce food and bring it into our
houses, where most of it is stolen by his little relatives at the domestic
level. Every fat parasitic cockroach has a billion little parasitic cockroaches
feeding off him. But none of them do any work. We humans produce the food but
the cockroaches eat most of it. We humans are allowed just enough food to keep us
working so that we can feed the parasites.’

‘This theory can’t explain everything.
I mean, why do we have schools and hospitals? These are provided for us humans
by us humans, not for the cockroaches.’

‘Ha ha,’ laughed Kupela, ‘You’re
really so innocent. Schools are there to brainwash us to believe that we humans
are really in charge, that we live in a human-centred world, and to see these
ghastly monster political cockroaches as fellow humans beings. And you, My poor
Daddy, you really sucked it all in!’

‘Hmm, seems I was given the wrong
spectacles. But what about hospitals?’

‘Hospitals are the main feeding
centres for orphaned cockroaches. Have you never noticed that there a thousand
times more cockroaches than patients in our hospitals? The walls are kept
filthy to make them feel at home. But hospitals are also there to kill off the
old and sick humans who are no longer fit to produce food for the cockroaches.’

‘So where do human rights come into this?’

‘Nowhere!’ she laughed. ‘This is a
biological model of the political economy, and it works as a self-perpetuating
and well-balanced symbiotic ecosystem. Any talk of human rights would upset the
whole system, and reveal that humans are being used as slaves by parasitic
cockroaches.’

‘Good gracious,’ I said. ‘So you
really believe that this is the truth?’

‘Truth?’ she laughed. ‘Truth?’ she
laughed again. ‘Poor old Daddy! You’ve just put on a worse pair of spectacles!’

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

‘And here endeth the First Lesson,’
intoned Father McWhisky, as he lifted the Holy Book to kiss it, then lowered it
reverentially onto the lecturn. It was Easter Monday at the Cathedral of St
Ignominious, and Father McWhisky had sobered up for the occasion.

He now looked benignly around at the
large congregation, and gestured grandly to the high and mighty who were
gathered on the front pew. ‘It is with great pride and pleasure that we welcome
our Great Leader and some of his ministers, who have graciously found time to
be with us this morning.’

A murmur of approval went round the
church, as the Great Leader bowed his head to show his humility in receiving
such great appreciation, and as Father Whisky now continued by calling the
congregation to partake of holy communion.

‘Who is this damn whisky priest?’
whispered the Minister of Injustice into the ear of the Great Leader. ‘Is he
not one of those who signed the church petition against you? Is he not the one giving
sermons about leaders who don’t keep their promises?’

The
Ceremonial Vice-President, not wanting to be left out of any intrigue, leant
over to the Great Leader and hissed ‘He is the very one who has been talking about the
high price of mealie-meal, and claims that the poor are getting poorer.’ At
which point the Minister for Illegal Detentions and Deportations leant over and
said ‘Just deliver him to me and I’ll fix him!’

‘Let us go and take our holy
communion,’ the wise Great Leader replied to his whispering friends. ‘This is a
religious occasion and we must follow our religious observances and obligations.
Let us keep religion and politics separate. We left our politics at the
cathedral door, and we shall only resume politics when we get back outside. With
these wise words, his scheming followers fell quiet, and followed their Great
Leader to the alter rail to receive their holy communion.

And when all the supplicants were back
in their pews, Father Whisky led the congregation in a moving prayer for the
health of their Great Leader, asking that he might bring the nation to further
peace, unity and prosperity. ‘And now,’ said Father Whisky, ‘it is usually my
duty to deliver a sermon at this stage in the service. But since we have our
Great Leader in our midst, I have asked him to say a few words about the
meaning of Easter.

Slowly and majestically the Great
Leader glided towards the lectern, rested his hands on each side of it, and fixing the congregation with his two beady eyes. ‘Christ died for us,’ he began. ‘He
died because he loved us, and he loves us still. And it is written, in the
Gospel According to Mark, Chapter 12 Verse 31, that Jesus commanded us to Love thy neighbour as thyself.

‘Even Father McWhisky here is my
neighbour,’ continued the Great Leader, as he glared aggressively at the the congregation, ‘and I must love him as I love myself.
Even though he has spoken against me, I must love him. Even though he has been
claiming that I have been misusing my authority, I must love him. We must do
away with quarrelling and division and instead live together in brotherly love. Some
people come to whisper in my ear, saying that I must deal with this troublesome
Whisky priest because he opposes me. But I say no. With love comes forgiveness
and reconciliation. Only with love can we all work together for all humanity. So
long as I am in charge, I want to see unconditional love, because this is a
Christian country. May God bless you all!’

Now the Great Leader stepped serenely
down from the lectern, and began walking at a stately and solemn pace down the
central aisle, as his scheming ministers scurried into line behind. ‘Our Great
Leader has another engagement,’ announced Father Whisky. ‘Please all stand in
honour of our Great Leader, in thanks for his inspiring Easter message, and
in prayer that our Good Lord will bless us with many more years of his wise
leadership.’

Now, as the crooked back of the last
crooked minister finally disappeared through the huge mukwa doors, Father
Whisky stood with arms raised to Heaven, saying ‘Oh Father we thank you for
such leadership, we thank you for this message, we thank you for this day, we
thank you for the night, we thank you even for the flies and mosquitoes, we
thank you for…’

But he was interrupted in his
potentially interminable prayer by the bursting open of the side door, through
which crashed a cohort of policemen in riot gear with batons raised. Four of
them grabbed Father Whisky and dragged him outside, while the inspector in charge
ran to the pulpit and shouted ‘Father Whiskey is under arrest for holding a
meeting without a police permit, for distributing alcohol without a liquor
licence, and for falsely and corruptly claiming that he can arrange favours
from God in return for money given to his church! In order to facilitate our
security check, all party members should move to this side of the church, while
opponents, insurgents, dissidents, critics and malcontents should move to the
other side!’

‘My God!’ said one parishioner to
another. ‘What happened to unconditional love?’

‘There was another sudden policy
change,’ laughed his friend.

‘I thought the one party state was supposed
to be dead!’ said somebody else.